Kenneth Rijock

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Remember the case of Marco Antonio Delgado, the prominent El Paso attorney who laundered drug profits for the Milenio Cartel, and who was closely linked to powerful Mexican political figures, including the wife of the President of Mexico ? He was convicted in that case, and now he was convicted in a new case, involving wire fraud and money laundering, unrelated to the first.

That case was of great public interest, when it was disclosed that he was acting as a Confidential Informant for a US law enforcement agency, when he committed multiple offenses* The original 20-year sentence, handed down by the trial judge was reversed by the 5th Circuit in 2015; this year, he was resentenced, and received a 16-year sentence, which he is also appealing.

In the second case, Delgado represented a corporation that entered into a $121m agreement with a Mexican state-owned utility, the CFE. He illegally diverted $12m from the transaction, for his own personal use, and had the money deposited in an account in a Caribbean tax haven.

We shall be covering the appeal on this blog.
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* Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the first case was the effort, on behalf of his counsel, to have his mental health examined, when the defendant declined to enter into what was stated to be a plea negotiation. Perhaps defense counsel might have considered the fact that any cooperation on his part could very well have resulted in his assassination, by his Cartel client.